When you hear somebody say “Hey, lets ban plastic.” you might think yeah good idea but it’s so hard. Right? No! Actually it is not hard at all, we just need to do the first step and adjust our habits. There is a good example that it can be done, not in a week, but we can get there. I think it was last year when our government here in Germany banned plastic straws and plastic bags. Amazing right, a government does something really useful for ones. However, we had nothing else than plastic straws for decades, there was never an alternative for them. By banning them you would think there wouldn’t be any straws anymore, right? Well no, it was a bit like magik, boom suddenly there were straws made from good materials all over the place. Suddenly they offer straws from metal, paper and a special kind of glass and porcelain. Now, everybody knew that these plastic straws are very very harmful in so many way but they kept making them despite the fact that they can be made easily from nature friendly materials until the government stops them by law. WTF!!! I bet on my first coffee in the morning that they could replace all plastic items if they just wanted. The problem is, we keep buying that stuff and our government lets them do it.
So, what can we do? At some point I started to replace all plastic items with items made from sustainable, nature friendly/neutral materials. It is a step by step process and at first it might seem very expensive but on the long run it will pay off for the planet and your bank account. The Bento Box made from metal will last much longer than the ones that are made from plastic. I store everything in glass or metal container and I love it because you can actually can get those sterile (try that with a plastic container). I switched my plastic stitch markers for some made from metal. Or you could use different things like bobby pins (metal) or small safety pins (metal too). You can get all kitchen tools made from sustainable materials too. If you are like me and don’t like to eat stuff like ice cream, yoghurt or pudding with a metal tea spoon, there are tea spoons made from porcelain. And the coaster you see there is made from slate.
I’m sure you spotted that small roll of “plastic” bags there on the picture. Doesn’t belong there you say? Well it may look like plastic but it isn’t plastic. These poop bags are made from corn starch. No plastic at all. The entire bag is biodegradable. Why they don’t use that material for other things like garbage bags? I dunno. My wild guess would be maximum profit. =p The thing is, when we stop to buy the plastic garbage, they will stop to produce it. We can not wait till our governments wake up and do the right thing. We have to do the first step, get creative and ban plastic from our homes. The rest will follow.
Somewhat Patchy 